GAINESVILLE, Fla.—Florida would like everyone to know that college basketball’s leading bad boy isn’t the unhinged jerk he’s made out to be.

Marshall Henderson would like everyone to know Florida is the unhinged defensive team it’s made out to be.

Patric Young and Florida have had no trouble in SEC play. (AP Photo)

That was the takeaway Saturday night as an SEC showdown turned into a mutual admiration society. Florida was so good in beating Ole Miss 78-64 that the Gators took their own crowd out of the game.

“I thought they’d be a little bit more mean than they were,” Henderson said.

It’s hard to be mean when you’re having so much fun. Henderson bombed in 25 harmless points, but there were none of the antics that have left audiences spewing venom around the SEC.

No yelling at the student section. No puffing out his shirt after sinking a clutch shot. No throwing ice back into the stands.

Henderson was so well behaved, don’t be surprised if another postgame photo surfaces on the Internet. Instead of sharing a beer with Ole Miss frat boys, Henderson will be toasting Billy Donovan’s game plan.

“They execute perfectly. They make open shots, and they make tough shots,” he said. “They’re really a good team. That’s why they’re ranked No. 4 and will probably move up. I see them being No. 1 in the country by the end of the season.”

As for the Gators, they weren’t sure what to make of Henderson before the game. Actually, one Florida player in an unguarded moment said he “hated that (bleeping) guy.”

But that was based strictly on reputation. Henderson has developed one in a hurry. A couple of weeks ago, nobody outside of Oxford, Miss., really had heard or cared about the Rebel with a cause.

Henderson seemed determined to shoot 30 times a game and infuriate every opposing fan. He had the proper bad-boy pedigree, with Ole Miss being his fourth school in three years. And he has the playground game to go with the trash talk.

The game was on display Saturday, if not the talk. Give Henderson an inch, and he’ll take a 3-pointer. He tried his usual 11 and made seven. They were seven the hard way.

“He got nothing easy. He was shooting double-pumpers in,” Donovan said. “He can have all those he wants. I give him credit.”

Florida is 18-2 (8-0 in SEC) for a lot of reasons. Instead of one Henderson, the Gators usually have four or five guys who score in double figures. Erik Murphy led the way Saturday with 19.

He had 13 in the first half as Florida jumped to a 35-15 lead. Then it was just a question of how badly it would suffocate the Rebels.

“This is my seventh Florida team to play. One of those was the national championship team that had NBA lottery picks on it,” Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said. “I don’t remember a Florida team guarding with that intensity.”

The Gators came into the game allowing only 50.3 points per game. That explains how they’d won their first seven SEC games by an average of 28.3 points.

Ole Miss (17-3, 6-2) came in averaging 80. But they were coming off a dispiriting home loss to Kentucky. The most interesting moment in that game came when a fan threw ice onto the court, and Henderson fired it back at about 90 mph.

“His attitude and the way he acts, that’s just him being competitive and enjoying the moment,” Florida guard Mike Rosario said.

Henderson didn’t talk much to fans Saturday, but he did chat quite a bit with himself. Like after missing a 3-pointer that would have cut Florida’s lead to 10 points early in the second half.

“Wide open. Missed it!” he said. “Wide open. Missed it!”

For the record, he wasn’t wide open. Florida rarely gave Henderson any space to shoot. Not that a gunner of his caliber worries about such things.

“I did my best to stop him,” Florida’s Scottie Wilbekin said, “and he still got 25.”

That was approximately 15 fewer points than Ole Miss needed.

“I really respect how you people play,” Henderson told Florida center Patric Young after game.

“Don’t worry about what people say about you,” Young replied.

The Gators were pretty much thinking and saying the same things before Saturday.